Champion of the Bots ✔️

Chapter 1 ~ RENA

 The sky was a deep ocean-black when Rena awoke.

She leaned against the plastic wall and plopped her head by the roundish-rectangular window, feeling cold seep into her cheeks. Squinting through the misty clouds, Rena could almost see distant lights of the lands thousands of feet below. Glancing at the paper map taped against her wall, she picked up a pin from get wooden table.

"I think we're right...here," Rena said, squishing the red pin on a random spot in Asia.

Nodding and smiling to herself, Rena stood up and began her morning routine, like she had done for the past eleven years.

Wake up. Look down. Stick a pin. Get dressed.

Stepping softly on the carpeted floor, Rena walked to her wooden closet adjacent to her white mattress. The doors creaked noisily, and Rena cringed then waited for one of her neighbors to hiss at the sound at this ungodly hour.

No hisses. Rena continued conjuring up clothes. She didn't have very many clothes because everyone here had to sew their own clothes together, and Rena was not very skilled at anything related to a needle and a thread.

Plucking out her recent design—a dark green cotton shirt with thigh-length jeans—Rena dressed then mentally went back to her morning list.

Wash up.

Quietly, carefully, Rena trudged her wooden door open, tense at any hiss or breath or sound from her neighbors.

Tiptoeing, she reached the common bathroom and washed up; she was still careful not to splash her face with cold water too loudly.

Next, go to the Common Room.

Rena made her way down the hallway, mentally awakening her brain by listing the names of her neighbors behind each wooden door. Poli, Sanra, Lio, Olive, Wanda, Dren...

The noise of soft clattering of spoons and plates and people distracted Rena's thoughts and made her focus on the nibbling hunger in the pit of her stomach.

The wafts of food snaked down Rena's nose and triggered a loud growl in her stomach. Hugging her poor stomach, Rena waited like a frozen deer as she heard the shift of Grumpy Gary turning on his creaky bed, who lived by the stairs to the Common Room and who glared at anyone who waked him up before 7am.

No yelling. Rena blew a sigh of relief and quickly climbed up the stairs, where a group of toddlers sat waiting for her.

"Oh, I am so sorry, everyone!" She said, eyes widening. "I forgot that today was story time!"

The children stared at her blankly, blinking their bright and sleepy eyes.

Plopping onto the floor like a sack of rocks, Rena began.

"I have been on a road trip all my life," Rena murmured, sitting with her legs locked together. She leaned forward, her back curved and her dark brown hair cascading across her shoulders to surround her face like a dark aura. "Would you like to hear my story? Alright then."

Before anyone could stop her, she sipped her glass of water, cleared the dust in her throat, and began in a mysterious voice:

"People tell me that the end of the world came on the back of a beast of grey. Stories say that navy blue robots descended from the sky and made it rain blood. People described the banshee screams echoing across the gravel, along with the thundering stomps of a stampede of people running for their lives.

"I remember pieces—the flash of red and green lights, the smell of decaying garbage, the glimmer of gold, and the green eyes of a Bot. I tried to run—but where could you hide when Bots have sensitive hearing, sharp eyes, and were streaming from every corner of the city? As I rounded a corner, I felt the chills before I came across a Bot. Or, should I say, it came across me." She waited for the gasps to echo away.